Archives for August 16, 2009

When I took my husky, Isis, in for her yearly shots, I got her chipped. I had been meaning to do this for a while, but always managed to forget when I took her in.

Being a husky, Isis is prone to wandering. She has managed to escape a few times, mainly when someone else has left the gate to my backyard open. I now have a lock on the gate. Once she made a break through the front door, but that was after I had been in Maine for a week and she had not been out for a run, just walks. She even escaped once by squeezing through a gap between the fence and the porch wall that should have been too narrow for her (and by pulling up two blocking poles). I fixed that with a so far husky proof three layered defense. My previous dog, Chrissy, was a Golden Retriever and she never let me out of her sight when we were outside and never wandered. Adapting to the ways of the independent and wandering husky was a bit of an adjustment.

I’ve been lucky and always got her back, twice because of her collar tag. But, I take her collar off at night (like most dogs she likes to get up around 3:00 am and throw down a big full bodied, tag rattling shake). So, in theory, she could escape without her collar. Or she might get stolen and have her collar taken, or it might just fall off.

Getting chipped means that she has a built in ID. That is the main purpose of the chip. On the downside, the chip can only be read by a special reader and it is not at all obvious that a pet has been chipped. In the past, not all readers could read all chips, which was (and is) a problem. As such, you will want to make sure that your pet is chipped with the sort of chip that can be read in your area. Going with a national registry service, such as AKC also makes it more likely that the chip can be read anywhere.

Chipping seems to be fairly painless (Isis didn’t even flinch) and is supposed to be quite safe. It cost me about $50 to get Isis chipped and this included the “free” lifetime enrollment with the AKC. So, if Isis escapes, loses her collar and ends up at the animal shelter, I’ll get her back.

While I have not had to use the service, I feel a bit better knowing that she is chipped. I would, in fact, recommend it.